Merchant & Mills Workbook - the Haremere Jacket

Some things are just not meant to be...

I've spent several days working on the Haremere jacket. Gosh, what a mess. And I give up. Got other things to do.

I really like the concept: an oversized boyfriend jacket, or a coat with added length. Big patch pockets. A shawl collar and 2 buttons. But I've had issues with the drafting and with fitting a couple critical points.


My biggest challenge was with the shoulders. The shoulder seam is a long curve, up and away from the neckline, then back down to the dropped armscye.

The arrow in the pic below is pointing to my natural shoulder - that's some drop. My dressform Emile has slightly sloped shoulders, while mine are straight across. It kind of fits on Emile.

However, when I tried it on, with the sides open, I could see I had a problem. The shoulder seam bubbled up, and when it came back down to earth, it actually cupped the top of my arms. So I basted all the side seams and put it on again to verify. Wow, too much curve in the shoulder seam, and the armscye is tiny. I could hardly raise my arms. There's just no give - maybe this is meant to be worn with one's arms down. Down, I say, no hands in the air!

Aargh. I fiddled with the shoulder seam last night and again this morning. Flattened it out and adjusted for my sloping right shoulder. My seam ripper got a workout, but the result was better across my shoulders. But to be able to raise my arms, I had to trim the armscye a bunch - about 2 inches at the shoulder seam, cured down the front and back.

I'm surprised my fabric, which is a lightweight denim, did not just fall apart at the shoulder/back neckline pivot point after being re-sewn about a million times. I went ahead and added the back lining, which is sewn into the neckline and shoulder seams. The neckline ends up with 7 layers in the seam. Just not pretty, and at this point I really didn't like this jacket at all.

And the loft was not pretty either! Here's how it looked before I chucked the jacket, the pattern, and all vestiges of the same (except my Workbook) into the bin.

I don't want to be a naysayer - I've seen several really attractive versions of this jacket. Everyone is shaped differently. It just doesn't suit me.

Things I do like about the pattern:

The front facing, with it's curved bottom and finished edge, is very pretty.

The Workbook uses a bound finish on the facing, but I used a Hong Kong finish, to reduce bulk. And I think it's prettier.

Stitching in the ditch, Hong Kong finish

The pockets are also nicely drafted. They have a full lining, which hides all the trimming and clipping that's necessary to achieve a clean and symmetric curved line at the bottom.

End of the Haremere tale. 

I'm off to cut out a Jalie cocoon sweater. I did a muslin last week, and I've decided to go for it in a navy knit crepe. Turner Classic Movies is showing Walter Matthau films this morning. Perfect.

Bye for now - Coco